Use of Other Animals as Clothing
Other animals (lets not forget that we are also animals) are used as recourses to provide us with the leather and fur which we use to dress ourselves and to protect ourselves against the cold. We raise sheep and cattle, we hunt seals, we encage minks, foxes etc. stopping these other animals from enjoying their lives and finally killing them to make garments from the skin and fur. All animals (human or not) need to protect themselves from the elements, but that doesn’t make it ok to skin another to cloth ourselves. Would we like it if someone else ripped of our skin to make themselves a pair of shoes?

'Leather': depriving cows of their skin
Whilst using the fur of various animals such as mink, fox, and chinchilla is no longer as common a practice as it once was due to the quantity of information available about the suffering caused by the fur industry, leather continues to be in high demand and extensive use, its main uses being in the manufacture of footwear, jackets, handbags, seating, etc. Rarely do we question the fact that leather also comes from the skin of an animal, normally a cow (although it can also come from oxen, pigs, horses...), which has been tanned and treated to avoid decomposition and obtain the desired colour.

If 'leather' isn’t rejected like other animal’s skins (mink, chinchilla, etc) its because we habitually consider it as a by-product of the flesh industry. In reality, leather is no by-product: cows are exploited for their milk, flesh and skin and the multimillion pound leather industry would sustain itself even if the other abuses were to end tomorrow (just as the pelt industry continues to sustain itself today).

Pelts
During fur production the animals, whether raised in cages or trapped in the wild, tend to be skinned alive. Approximately 35 animals are killed and skinned to make a single coat and the fur industry currently kills around 30 million animals a year.
The use of fur is now widely rejected due to public awareness of the suffering and deaths it caused. However, we need to apply those same arguments for the rejection of any item of clothing made from animal skins, since every case involves someone else’s death.
Curiously, the main argument used by those who defend such practices is that the animals raised for fur and leather production are equal to those raised for meat production, where conditions for the animals are the same or worse. For us this only demonstrates the need for rejection of all areas of animal exploitation.

Sheeps hair
Wool is an animal product which is widely consumed and seldom questioned, in spite of the large amount of suffering involved in the raising and exploitation of sheep for wool production.
Wool consists of a fine, long and elastic protein called keratin. Before we began exploiting sheep, they used to produce enough wool to protect themselves from the cold. However, domestic sheep today have been selectively bred to produce more wool than is natural. This selective breeding has resulted in a multitude of illnesses related to their excessive amount of fur, as well as the pain caused to them during sheering. Workers immobilise sheep during sheering in order to obtain every possible inch of wool from their bodies, ignoring the physical pain and injuries they suffer as a result.

Sheep are individuals with their own interests and desires, not producers of scarves, jumpers, gloves and coats for us to be fashionable or protect ourselves from the cold.

Alternatives
These days there is an endless supply of clothes which aren’t made from animal products. Its easy to buy products such as shoes, jackets, jumpers etc. made from synthetic materials like acrylic and nylon or plant based materials such as cotton, hemp, linen etc.